Food And Freedom

Author(s): Paul Dundas
Publisher: Paul Dundas

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174
Paul Dundas
either of the body's efficacy (sakti) or the soul's life-karma;87 rather there are other, innate reasons.88 Firstly there is the quality of development (paryāpti) which is responsible for the growth of the body and senses through the agency of digested food;89 that such a process of digestion does take place is guaranteed by the fact, attested in the canon, that all souls (with the exception of onesensed creatures) possess a particular subtle, digestive body (taijasa) which is responsible for this activity.90 In addition, karmic factors come into play, for the kevalin, as mentioned above, has bound life-karma in his previous existence which ensures a long life in his final birth; such a period of existence will need to be sustained by the taking of food, for it is a matter based on authoritative knowledge (pramāņa) that human bodies cannot exist without food.91 But the most important factor is the continued existence in the kevalin of feelingproducing karma which is the cause of the soul's experience of pleasant (sātā) and unpleasant (asātā) things.92 This type of karma ensures that, during the entire state of being of a kevalin-with-activity until the moment of transition to the extremely brief fourteenth stage, the kevalin is still susceptible to many of the same kind of experiences, such as hunger, cold and heat, as the chadmastha, experiences which are not inflicted by any outside agency which would imply imperfection in the kevalin but are, rather, inevitable, given the way the human body works. The Digambaras make great play with the fact that the attainment of kevala knowledge gives rise to the full development of the soul's original, pre-karmic qualities namely bliss, energy, insight and knowledge, and so a personage possessing these qualities would have no need to eat. This is not a valid point, however, for taking food has the same status as other normal human activities such as resting (the kevalin has had a magically constructed pavilion built where he can do this), moving about or sitting down.93 Furthermore, it cannot be said that an individual's energy would increase as his hunger decreased, for that is contrary to experience.94
For the Švetāmbaras, then, the chadmastha and the kevalin are linked by the possession of audārika bodies and feeling-producing karma, the latter of which has not become, in Digambara parlance, 'like a burnt rope', without any efficacy.95 The fact that the kevalin has extirpated the harming karmas does not mean that he is not still subject to some sort of karmic activity; it is only the siddha, the liberated soul living in a state of disembodied bliss in the roof of the universe, who is completely free from worldly feeling and karma. 96 Certainly the kevalin has had some of his miraculous attainments (atiśaya) from his very birth right through the chadmastha state but it could not possibly be argued on that basis that he did not eat while a chadmastha.97 The same audārika body which was nourished with food then must be supported in identical fashion in the kevalin state and since it has been established that there are perfectly legitimate reasons why the kevalin should eat, denial of this could only mean that a cause could not have its proper effect, a nonsensical conclusion.98